The present invention relates to food products made from protease enzyme containing fish, processes to make such food products, and processes to inactivate protease enzyme in fish, such as arrowtooth flounder.
Alaska's flatfish resource is one of the largest in the world. Arrowtooth flounder, which constitutes about 65% of the flatfish biomass (excluding halibut) is presently unmarketable because of the presence of protease enzyme that degrades myosin. Enzymatic degradation of myosin during normal cooking leads to excessive softening of muscle resulting in an unacceptable paste-like texture of the cooked product. Lack of a suitable technology to inhibit/destroy protease in fish muscle, such as arrowtooth muscle, is preventing utilization of a vast untapped arrowtooth flounder resource off Alaska.
Some attempts have been made to produce injected fillet and surimi using protease inhibitory additives. However, distribution and diffusion of inhibitors to enzyme sites present a problem with injection technology. Further, surimi technology, if and when available, will utilize less than 20% of the harvested resource. The remainder of the harvest (more than 80%) will be discarded as processing waste.